


what you are in the dark

by Enfilade



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Emetophobia, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Robots, Sexual Coercion, Sticky Sex, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:39:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enfilade/pseuds/Enfilade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some problems that only a sonic bomb laced with a virus can solve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the music of the night

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is rated DJD for dubious consent for the current encounter, a long-term series of encounters without consent, unhealthy relationships, and implied violence.
> 
> I decided to write some Tarn/Pharma and wanted to do something a little different. I’ve read a few fics about how their “relationship” began, but I’ve yet to find one about what made it end…about when Pharma decided that setting off the sonic bomb was the best course of action. If Tarn's abuse didn't cross the line, and killing his own patients didn't cross the line, what did? The moral of the story, of course, is that nasty!Tarn is very bad, and nice!Tarn is worse.

_Be careful making wishes in the dark_

_Can’t be sure when they’ve hit their mark_

_And besides in the mean, mean time_

_I’m just dreaming of tearing you apart_

\--Fall Out Boy, “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark”

  


Chapter 1: the music of the night

Pharma’s optics were useless now.

It didn’t matter how much he strained to see; his sensors fed his brain nothing but static. Vos was a scientist, not a doctor, but apparently he knew enough basic biology to deactivate Pharma’s optical sensors. It remained to be seen if he knew enough to turn them back _on_ again. 

Pharma could stew on that, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Best he save his processor power for surviving tonight’s encounter with the commanding officer of the Decepticon Justice Division.

He was sitting on a chair in his own quarters—at least he had been when Vos had flipped the switch, and he’d been conscious the whole time. His feet brushed familiar rungs; his air filter picked out the scents of disinfectant and cleaner and the floral potpourri blend he kept in his personal quarters to blot out the reek of hospital. He listened, and was rewarded with a low creak from the other side of the table, audible over the faint strains of the Empyrean Suite playing softly from his entertainment system. Tarn had to be sitting opposite him, and the tank’s weight was stressing a chair designed for Pharma’s lighter mass.

He couldn’t hear Vos, and he wondered if the other DJD member was still present. He cocked his head, straining to catch a sound that might betray the rifle’s position. An annoying whisper of fabric drifted across his nose, making him twitch.  
“Is this really necessary?” he complained, grabbing the offending cloth. The bandage was wrapped around his head, over his deactivated optics, and Vos had left two long tails hanging down from where he had tied it. Pharma turned the bandage so the tails hung down the back of his helm. They still tickled the nape of his neck, but that was better than his face.

“I’m afraid so,” Tarn replied in his deep, silky voice. “There’s just something disconcerting about seeing your gaze so…flat. So lifeless.”

“There’s an easy fix for that,” Pharma said sardonically.

“In due time, dear Doctor. Your optics will be reactivated when we are done.”

Pharma knew better than to ask _done with what_.

Tarn liked to play these little games from time to time. Their appointments had a standard pattern that after so many years had become routine: Pharma would show up at DJD Headquarters at the appointed time, examine Tarn, replace his transformation cog if necessary, examine and repair any of the other DJD members who needed care, and then, providing the former didn’t take too long, pretend to be delighted to accept Tarn’s invitation to his private quarters for an evening’s entertainment. What particular form that entertainment took varied: at first it had been all about Tarn brea…well, Pharma preferred to think of it as _Tarn asserting his dominance_. Unpleasant as the experience had been at first, it was still preferable to either being murdered by the DJD or calling up Autobot Command and admitting that the situation on Delphi was out of his control.

The situation on Delphi was not out of Pharma’s control. He’d made his choices, and gotten what he’d wanted—the base was still operational, its personnel safe, his own standing in good regard. All commanders knew about acceptable losses.

Over time, though, Tarn started asking for something more than…than the _dominance ritual_. It began with those requests that weren’t really requests, to do seemingly innocent things. Listen to music, sitting side by side on a couch. Watch holos of famous theatrical performances. Share meals; share drinks. Read, ugh, Megatron’s poetry to each other. Things that Pharma and Ratchet had once done together, minus the Megatron’s poetry bit.

Pharma didn’t think much of Megatron or his poetry, but Tarn’s taste in music wasn’t so horrible, and he’d found himself enjoying some of the holos to the extent that he’d actually forgotten who he was watching them with. At first, that kind of relaxation had led to sudden and very forceful enactments of the _dominance ritual_ ; but as time passed, Tarn seemed to lose the need to do that so often and so violently. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say that Tarn seemed to _gain_ the need for Pharma’s companionship. 

…Or that Tarn wanted Pharma to want _his_ companionship, which was a thought disturbing enough that Pharma refused to dwell on it.

At any rate, repetition bred familiarity, and the arrangement wasn’t so awful now as Pharma had thought all those years ago when it had first began. They still interfaced regularly, but at least Tarn pretended to be nice about it and showed Pharma a degree of consideration. Pharma would never have picked a Decepticon for a berth partner; but Tarn was not so terribly bad in the berth, particularly when he was actually _trying_ , which he did more often as of late, now that Pharma was thoroughly convinced of his superior strength and the awe-inducing power in his voice. 

Tarn had access to entertainments and comforts that the Autobot army never bothered shipping to a place as out of the way as Messatine—no room on transports for luxuries when the same space could carry guns and spare parts—and Tarn’s selections were often to Pharma’s liking. Delphi was thriving when everyone had thought it would fall; and though Pharma would never confess the price he paid for his success, he accepted the accolades and waited for the time when Ratchet would retire or be killed and his position would go to the greatest doctor of the age, the one who had kept Delphi open against all odds. Then Pharma would take up the rank of Chief Medical Officer and leave the idiots here to the DJD’s tender mercies. First Aid and Ambulon and all the rest were living on borrowed time, and they had no idea how much they owed Pharma for every breath they took.

The only problem was when Tarn decided to shake things up.

Like tonight.

It was as though every once in a while Tarn’s professional side broke through and warned him that he was becoming a little too predictable, a little too indulgent—that his interaction with Phama was approaching an actual courtship rather than the infliction of a lord’s will upon his vassal. That was when Tarn did something new, to remind Pharma (or possibly himself) that he held all the power in their relationship. 

The last time Tarn had felt the need to innovate, he’d insisted on putting Pharma on a leash like Kaon’s pet for the entirety of their time together. The humiliation! Pharna’s cockpit burned just _thinking_ about it. 

The most memorable was the time Tarn decreed that Pharma was not to take anyone else to berth. Pharma had waved him off, thinking he was bluffing, only to find out that yes, the DJD _was_ watching him somehow. The poor nurse who’d been the object of Pharma’s attentions had been reduced to a shattered husk, his head impaled on a spike and left on Delphi’s landing pad, his crumpled T-cog delivered to Pharma’s office in a decorative box, along with a note informing Pharma that the T-cog quota had been raised.

And now this. Pharma listened, but he’d not yet heard the door open and shut. Was Vos still here? Or had the scientist succeeded in leaving soundlessly?

Not knowing—being unable to know, unable to _see_ —sent little glitchmice of panic scuttling around Pharma’s spark chamber with their icy little feet. Fighting down panic—he wouldn’t give Tarn the satisfaction—Pharma recited to himself the reasons why this situation would turn out okay.

Reason one: Tarn wouldn’t kill him. Tarn wouldn’t kill him because if he did, there went his supply of T-cogs, and if that disappeared, Tarn would have to suffer until he found a replacement, or break his transforming addiction. And there was no chance that Tarn would break an addiction he found so enjoyable. Tarn didn’t want to be cured, and that left him with certain needs, needs only Pharma could meet. 

Reason two: Tarn wouldn’t permanently maim him, either. Permanent damage would leave Pharma unable to perform surgery and that would render him just as useless a source of T-cogs as death would. 

_That’s why he has to turn your optics back on sometime._

Reason three: Tarn also had limits on how much minor damage he could inflict on Pharma. Specifically, if Pharma kept showing up with mysterious injuries and inexplicable damage, someone sometime was going to start asking questions. Questions that would make their way back to Autobot Command and get Pharma removed from Delphi, temporarily or otherwise, but either way, it would be the ruin of them both. Tarn’s T-Cog supply would vanish just as surely as if Pharma were maimed or dead. And Tarn, brute though he might be, was not that stupid.

Tarn liked to push it, though. Tarn liked to see just how many dents Pharma could hammer out of his own frame before leaving DJD headquarters; he’d occasionally left Pharma talking quickly to explain cracked cockpit glass or an unbalanced aileron. And it hurt, of course it still hurt, but after this long Pharma knew how to handle a little pain.

Which wasn’t to say Tarn couldn’t still scare him.

There were still some things Pharma was frightened of. Things that Tarn hadn’t done _yet_ , but _could_. Things like forcing Pharma to take part in torturing someone he _knew_ , someone like Ambulon. Torturing Decepticons was different; they deserved it, damned dirty Cons, so that was okay. The idea of torturing someone who belonged _to Pharma_ was something else entirely. Things like upping the T-cog quota again; as if it wasn’t already high enough.

Or things like interfacing with the other DJD members. That was another thing Tarn hadn’t permitted. He seemed to like having Pharma all to himself. He hadn’t so much as allowed the others to _watch_. Pharma tried to tell himself that getting fragged by Kaon wouldn’t be all that much different, really, than getting fragged by Tarn, but he was having difficulty convincing himself when he couldn’t see and _where in the Pit was Vos?_

_Dear Primus, surely this isn’t the day when Tarn changes his mind about that._

And of course, Reasons One through Three only applied on the assumption that Tarn had not found another medic who could take over where Pharma left off. If Tarn ever found such a replacement—all Pharma’s safeguards would be stripped away, and he would never know until it was far too late.

Pharma tried to suppress the shudder in his airframe, but he couldn’t quite manage it.

“Are you cold, Doctor?” Tarn inquired.

_Miserable slagger. He’s just been sitting there, watching me, knowing I can’t see him, can’t see anything, waiting for me to react._

“Where’s Vos?” Pharma demanded.

He hadn’t wanted to ask, for two reasons: he didn’t trust Tarn to answer honestly, and he didn’t want to admit that the scientist’s location concerned him. But as surrenders went, this one was preferable to letting his imagination run wild until he was quivering like a leaf before Tarn’s gaze.

“Busy,” Tarn purred. “I fear he won’t have the opportunity to reactivate your optics for quite some time.”

Which was garbage—Tarn didn’t fear very much, and Vos would have time if Tarn told him to make time—but it reassured Pharma anyway.

“So he’s not here any more?”

“He is not. Why?” Tarn’s tone sounded amused. “Is there something you did not wish him to see?”

Pharma _hated_ having to answer that question.

The honest _truth_ was that Pharma was…was…Was in dire need of a little stress relief, and given that taking any other mech to his berth was a death sentence for his partner, and that Autobot Command would surely take notice if the decapitated heads on the landing pad became a regular occurrence, that left him with only two options: his own hands, and his present company.

And Tarn wasn’t _terrible_ at interfacing when he chose to be _nice_ about it.

“Let’s not be obtuse,” Pharma said bluntly. “We both know what you’re here for.”

“Let’s not be rude,” Tarn replied, and the timbre of his voice told Pharma he was relishing their wordplay as always. “I’m here to assist you with something you can’t manage for yourself.”

“I could if you hadn’t forbidden me to…”

“You still couldn’t have managed it _for yourself_ ,” Tarn taunted with a purr. “All I did was enact some…quality control over your choice of partners.”

“Quality degrades over time,” Pharma retorted, enjoying himself despite himself, savouring the lash in his words and the sharp-edged feeling of matching wits with a mech who was his… _almost_ his equal in intelligence and with whom he did not need to restrain himself. Unlike his fellow Autobots, with whom he needed to temper his remarks lest he face the censure of his superiors, with Tarn he could indulge all the cruelty he could muster. There was a part of him that deeply savoured the freedom from those social restraints. “I’m not convinced you haven’t _soured_.”

“If you ask nicely, I might prove you wrong.”

“I challenge you,” Pharma said instead, “to prove me wrong _if you can_.”

And then there was a pause. Tarn’s voice was a weapon to be sure, but so was his silence—in the absence of sound, Pharma always began to wonder if he’d pushed Tarn too far. And Tarn knew it and gratuitously abused small silences to sap Pharma’s nerve. 

Pharma tried to hold his courage and almost succeeded. He could hardly be blamed for the trembling in his hands, given that he was blind; if Tarn were infuriated and about to strike him, Pharma would never know before the first blow hit.

“A moment, if you will,” Tarn at last, and then there was a soft, indefinable scraping noise.

Pharma tried to imagine what in his quarters could possibly be the source of that sound, but he came up with no answer. Fear crawled up his spinal strut. He’d already heard the juddering of the chair on the floor when Tarn pushed away from the table. It wasn’t the familiar swoosh of his door closing, either—was it Vos? Had Tarn lied about the scientist’s presence?

Pharma dialed the sensitivity on his audios to maximum, hoping to hear a footstep, or a quick intake of breath. The low rumble of Tarn’s fans became much more noticeable, along with the pounding of his own fuel pump. Then, another foreign noise: a sort of clicking clatter, as though something had been placed atop a hard surface.

Pharma’s fingers swept the table in front of him, searching for something he was not certain he wanted to find, but his questing hands encountered only empty air. Emboldened, he reached out further, searching...

Large hands caught his in their grasp.

Tarn was oddly gentle tonight, carefully closing his fingers around Pharma’s sensitive medic’s hands, but effectively halting his search for the source of the noise. 

Pharma heard Tarn take a step; from the fact that his arms weren’t cruelly yanked in their sockets, he assumed it was a step closer. “Come,” Tarn said, and was that a _quaver_ in his voice? It was like…like a defanged turbofox, or a cannon that shot flowers. One never expected something so lethal to seem so vulnerable.

 _You are being deceived_ , Pharma reminded himself. Decepticons based their very name on things that had not been as they seemed. He did not dare trust Tarn. Ever.

Indeed, even now, Tarn was tugging on his hands, making it clear to Pharma that quaver or no quaver, _come_ had not been a request.

So Pharma followed where Tarn led, because he had little choice in the matter and because some secret part of him still hoped this night might lead to a few moments of overload and oblivion, a handful of precious stolen seconds where he might forget that he carried the weight of Delphi on his shoulders.

Pharma moved clumsily, haltingly, not entirely trusting that he might not be led into a collision with some obstacle. It would hurt, and likely knock him to the floor; then he would hear Tarn’s booming laugh from out of the abyssal darkness. 

Tarn abruptly let go of Pharma’s hands. Some unknown thing creaked mysteriously. The medic halted, lost without the DJD commander’s guidance, and bracing himself for whatever blow was sure to come.

Hands closed around his waist, lifting him up. Pharma reached out for support and found himself clutching heavy treads draped over broad shoulders. Belatedly, the medic realized that the creak had to be his berth, adjusting to Tarn’s weight. Guessing what was coming, Pharma folded his knees and found himself gently placed astride Tarn’s lap, his knees on either side of the DJD commander’s thighs.

Tarn was apparently playing nice tonight. When he played nasty, Pharma had to face away from him, sitting helplessly on Tarn’s lap while the tank molested him any way he pleased. Being permitted to face Tarn, to touch Tarn, was allegedly a gift, and at first Pharma had appreciated the opportunity to at least look the bastard in the eye and show him how unimpressed he was; or take the opportunity to use his medic’s hands to give the DJD commander a miserable time attempting to appear impassive while Pharma sent ever-increasing ripples of pleasure through his systems as he played the tank’s nervous system like Tarn’s musicians played their instruments.

At first.

Later, Pharma came to realize that _playing nice_ was a trap in itself—a dangerous illusion that there might be any degree of genuine affection in this farce of a relationship. Because Tarn was an amoral killing machine and Pharma—Pharma was doing this because it was his _duty_ , and if a certain small part of him welcomed the personal contact, well, that was a result of Tarn ruining Pharma’s chances of _normal_ intimate relations. This was coercion, pure and simple, and Pharma didn’t like it, not one little bit.

…Tarn was warm tonight, his engine purring contentedly, and no matter how good Delphi’s heaters were, there was always a certain chill in the air that never quite went away. So when Pharma found himself pressing his chest against Tarn’s and wriggling to be certain the two of them were absolutely as close as possible, it was a perfectly natural response to being near a heat source in a cold environment. 

Tarn’s left arm folded around Pharma’s back, supporting his back strut by splaying a hand right between his wings, and Pharma relaxed into the hold as he might relax in a recliner chair, except no recliner thrummed with delight at his touch, no chair could ever know to stroke the knot at the base of his neck just so. Pharma felt his legs part a bit more and wrap around Tarn’s massive thighs as the tension fled his body, as his airframe urged his mind to surrender to the pleasurable sensations.

This was Tarn. Commander of the DJD. And Pharma’s mind was the only weapon he had with which to defend himself.

…And he was tired, from a hard month of work, and after putting in so many long hours to keep Delphi running. It felt so good to let go and let someone else take control for a change. 

Which was a dangerous thought, a downright traitorous thought, and the kind of internal war Pharma constantly waged with himself when he was here in Tarn’s arms—the urge on one hand to stay sharp and focused, to seek out any possible advantages against Tarn that he could find, and the urge on the other hand to take his pleasures where he could find them, because Primus knew they were in short enough supply.

When Tarn slid his right hand up Pharma’s throat, resting his thumb on Pharma’s chin, Pharma didn’t resist. One voice in his head told him to brace for something terrible and the other told him to hope for something good and both voices agreed in unison that the only thing to do was submit to Tarn and let him do as he would.

Tarn applied gentle pressure, tilting Pharma’s chin downwards, and just as Pharma hesitated in confusion, wondering what was going on as the hand fell away from his chin, he felt a soft new sensation, just a whisper of something warm against his lips. Curious, he leaned down a little further of his own volition, and the sensation came again—a warm, yielding mouth gently brushing against his own.

Shocked, Pharma closed his lips, almost experimentally, and the other did the same, drawing away slowly, as though reluctantly. Pharma leaned down again, but found himself questing blindly, not knowing where to go in the darkness of offlined optics.

He expected to hear Tarn laughing at him, but instead the hand on his back worked its way to another sensitive little node, causing him to arch his back and gasp. The other hand returned to his chin, and this time he eagerly let it guide him back the waiting mouth, the welcoming lips. And this time, instead of closing his mouth, he parted his lips, just a little. When nothing happened he let his tongue slide forward and then jumped as he felt the tentative touch of another tongue against his in the no man’s land where their lips met.

A distant analytical voice in the back of his brain module told him that he was kissing like he’d just gone on-line, and he ought to be ashamed of himself, because he was more experienced than this. He had no business being so excited and intrigued by a simple kiss. 

Pharma told the voice to shut up. He didn’t exactly get a lot of opportunities to kiss anyone these days, given as his choice of intimate partners was restricted by a jealous DJD commander to include only one option: Tarn.

_Tarn._

A soft tongue stroked over his and Pharma realized what that scraping sound had to have been.

_Tarn took his mask off._

Pharma had realized long ago that the Decepticon-symbol plate was not Tarn’s true face. However, he’d been told in extremely explicit terms just what kinds of torment he could anticipate if he were to so much as attempt to lift a corner of the mask and sneak a peek beneath it. If Tarn had his lines he dared not cross, so did Pharma: the things all but certain to make their bargain more trouble for Tarn than it was worth to him. For whatever reason, the mask that blotted out his true features and replaced them with the Decepticon insignia was apparently worth sacrificing his T-cog source to defend.

The tongue retreated from his mouth. Pharma moaned, sending his own tongue over strange lips in quest of the sweet, wet warmth, and sighed in pleasure when his tongue-tip encountered the other and stroked it reverently. 

And then he froze.

He’d never kissed Tarn before. He’d never been able to. The narrow slit in the Decepticon-symbol mask had allowed drinking straws and thinly-sliced energon treats to pass into Tarn’s mouth, but Tarn’s lips were out-of-bounds, and if Tarn’s tongue could reach outside the confines of the mask—something Pharma doubted—it had never done so. So here was Pharma, having never kissed Tarn before, being forbidden from kissing anyone else for so very long, and he’d gotten so wrapped up in the sheer novelty of this experience that he’d forgotten his place. He’d dared force his tongue into Tarn’s mouth? He’d slipped from submissive to aggressor and now Tarn was going to…

…oh…

…Tarn was going to reward him by playing with his wings. Oh…yes. Pharma wrapped his arms under Tarn’s, the better to cling to the tank for support as he arched his back into Tarn’s caress. The tank had both hands going on his wings, and it was amazing, and who could have guessed he’d be due a reward for taking the initative?

If Tarn liked it, Pharma was not complaining.

This, Pharma realized, was the reason for shutting his optics off. Seeing under Tarn’s mask was just as forbidden as it ever was, but apparently Tarn wanted to kiss. The answer, of course, was to render Pharma unable to see for the length of time the mask was off.

What happened next was sheer inevitability.


	2. the famous final scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While we're at it...credits for the songs that form the chapter titles.
> 
> The Music of the NIght - Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of the Opera  
> The Famous Final Scene - Bob Seger  
> Angel of the Morning - written by Chip Taylor and performed by a number of artists including The Pretenders, Juice Newton, Merrrilee Rush, Nina Simone and Olivia Newton-John
> 
> ...This is the chapter where you're going to want that fire extinguisher.

chapter two: the famous final scene

Pharma knew, even as his arms moved of what seemed their own accord, how this situation would play out. His medic’s fingers swept lightly over Tarn’s cheeks, locating and tracing the scar that he knew was there; he’d seen the edge of it under Tarn’s eye. It zigged and zagged its way across his face until it split one of those lips that still caressed Pharma’s. Along the path of the scar, Pharma discovered some sort of raised ridge, some unique facial architecture, perhaps an identifying feature. Of course he moved both hands to further explore it, just as certainly as the mental image he was constructing in his head of the mechanism behind the mask. And, of course, Tarn was going to stop him. Painfully. Pharma knew all this in advance, and yet, despite knowing better, he touched, because he couldn’t not.

Tarn’s hands left his wings, and Pharma braced for pain and explored faster, scouting the shape of Tarn’s jaw, the planes of his forehead…

Tarn’s hands closed around Pharma’s wrists.

Pharma was not sure how long they remained in tableau, Tarn holding Pharma’s hands out of reach of his face while his lips still lingered on Pharma’s. Eventually the knowledge of impending agony broke through to the forefront of Pharma’s mind and the medic flinched away from the DJD commander, turning his head and gritting his teeth, bracing for the shock that was certain to come.

Tarn deposited Pharma’s hands on his shoulders and wrapped his arms underneath Pharma’s, splaying his fingers across the medic’s lower back. Pharma felt a nose nudging at his jaw, an upper lip nuzzling him.

He was not going to be punished?

Impossible. Tarn was playing a sadistic game again. The second Pharma dropped his guard, that’s when the pain would descend. Pharma would not turn his head and resume the kisses. He would not be fooled that way. Pharma raised his head and withdrew into himself, preparing to meet his fate with what little dignity he was permitted to keep.

Tarn kissed his way down Pharma’s neck. It was…not unpleasant…but Pharma knew better than to fall for it. Tarn’s tongue dipping into Pharma’s collar assembly was highly problematic, though; it sent little shivers down Pharma’s backstrut and did nothing at all for his concentration. He bit his lip to keep his silence while Tarn continued. 

At some point Pharma realized he was leaning back quite a bit more than he had been previously, because much of his weight was resting on Tarn’s hands, with another portion borne by his grip on Tarn’s treads, and the tank’s mouth was now very busy on his cockpit glass, and dear Primus, did it feel good. A tell-tale tingle had started up in his valve and now he wondered if those delightful lips and that talented tongue might possibly make their way as far as….

_What?_

_No!_

Tarn, of all mechanisms, would not do _that_. And Pharma, of all mechanisms, would not _want_ him to. A dirty, slavering Decepticon… _there?_

Ugh, no.

_Please, yes._

Pharma shook himself. He was in this situation because he had to be; it was part of the deal he’d made to save Delphi. If his body reacted favourably, well, that was just the result of enforced deprivation coupled with Tarn’s sadistic calculations. They would both take what they needed and….

Tarn’s hands rose to Pharma’s upper back, boosting the jet effortlessly. With no optical reference points, Pharma was not certain what position he was in, though he guessed he was once again upright, and…and…

Tarn’s mouth was on his again and it felt…so…good.

Pharma felt dazed. The sound of his fans roared in his audios, and from their rhythmic whirring he guessed they’d been on for quite some time. Tarn’s own fans were growling low and deep; the tank was utterly unashamed to let Pharma know how much Tarn was enjoying himself. Pharma cuddled close against those powerful vibrations, unable to help himself; he could feel the purring sensation against his pelvic armour. Tarn growled his approval and lapped at Pharma’s jaw. 

Pharma leaned into the caress and then, suddenly, Tarn was biting down on Pharma’s collar assembly. Pharma tensed, but no sooner had he done so than Tarn released him from the…not really a bite, more like a nip, and now Tarn was licking him there and soothing the sting, and it felt incredible, it felt just so….

Pharma arched his back and somehow managed to get closer still, until his belly pressed against Tarn’s. There was less armour in that place, and the gesture was oddly intimate—a recognition of vulnerability on the part of both participants. A message of warning flashed in his brain, that making Tarn feel vulnerable might not have been the smartest decision, but _Primus_ this was good, and then Tarn’s mouth captured his. The intensity of the kiss stole the air from his intakes and fired up his engine as Pharma pressed himself against the other robot…

…and his interface panel snapped open.

Through a haze of pleasure and longing, Pharma still had the presence of mind to be momentarily embarrassed, perhaps even concerned. Yes, Tarn always got Pharma’s panel open sooner or later, but the jet had always made Tarn demand it first. Pharma had always been at least a little in control of his own body when he submitted—probably by Tarn’s design; the tank never used his voice to charm Pharma into that one act, because he wanted Pharma to feel the sting of conscious surrender. Pharma had never before been so turned on that the panel had opened involuntarily.

He hoped that Tarn might not have noticed; then he returned his attention to kissing. Primus, where had the DJD leader learned to kiss? He was criminally good at it, for a psychopath who wore a mask everywhere. And he tasted…he ought to have tasted like open fuel lines and burnt oil and the acrid tang of a burned-out spark chamber, but instead he tasted surprisingly sweet, like a rare high-grade vintage….

Tarn’s engine revved a little louder and his right hand began to travel away from Pharma’s wings to the small of his back. A second snap echoed in the room, followed by a delightful pressure that made Pharma groan in appreciation. He ground his hips against Tarn, feeling—what was he feeling?

Tarn was inside him.

Tarn’s spike was not yet fully pressurized. Pharma could feel it growing within him, becoming longer and thicker, expanding to fill the space in which it found itself. Pharma pressed against Tarn, feeling the Decepticon’s engine’s vibrations against his own spike, wishing Tarn’s spike would hurry up and fill him, because he was achingly empty and satisfaction was a few moments and an eternity away.

There had been a time not that long ago when this act had hurt. Tarn’s spike was the biggest Pharma had ever taken, definitely larger than Ratchet’s, and in the early days Tarn had taken cruel delight in shoving it into Pharma’s unprepared valve. Pharma’s valve had stretched to accommodate it, though, and now Tarn’s spike just felt good, the perfect size to satisfy. 

And it was hard to feel disgusted when one had no other lover to take this edge off.

Pharma groaned in pleasure as the spike began to rub sensitive nodes inside. The sound humiliated him for only a moment before he let it go; if he hid his emotions too well, Tarn might stop, and Pharma did not want him to. 

Tarn’s mouth captured Pharma’s lips again, as though the DJD commander sought to devour Pharma’s pleasure and swallow it whole.

Pharma let him, returning the kiss. In the dark he could pretend he was making love with…oh, not Ratchet, never Ratchet. Ratchet had only been good bent over his desk and begging, cut down, humbled before Pharma, before his better. Similarly this could not be First Aid or Ambulon or any of the other Delphi staff—they all belonged on their knees before the rightful Chief Medical Officer. Pharma could only be taken this way by a mech who was his equal, by a shadowy fantasy lover whose face was a mystery but whose spike was the very definition of sinful satisfaction. 

Pharma arched his back and moaned his appreciation into his lover’s mouth as the spike swelled to its full size, thick and resplendent. Pharma felt a hard pressure on a certain sensitive spot at the very roof of his valve and almost whimpered with want; had he ever found Tarn’s piercing repugnant? Surely not; not when it sent whiplashes of pleasure skittering through his neural net, burning with heat and, in the absence of their passing, leaving him craving more…

Tarn threw back his head, his vents blasting hot air, and Pharma mewled, his cries now unmuffled. He dug his hands into Tarn’s sides and rocked his hips, feeling helpless, needing his lover’s help…

Tarn surged under him, lifting him bodily, until Pharma felt as though his whole weight balanced on Tarn’s spike. The pressure on his nodes was so firm as to be almost painful and yet it was not quite enough—Pharma needed more, please, more…

_“…please…more…”_

Was he crying? Screaming?

_“…please…”_

Powerful hands cupped his aft, helping to lift him ever faster; then those hands wrapped around his waist and slammed him downward even as mighty hips surged up to meet him, ramming that spike so deep inside that….

Pharma felt he was about to split in two, and it scared him a lot, but it thrilled him even more. Though his lips parted in fear, the sound that came out was a howl of insensiate pleasure as that ring on Tarn’s spike hit a place inside that Pharma could only imagine. It was terrible and beautiful and _unbearably good_ …

Pharma had barely gotten his breath back when Tarn’s climax hit Pharma in a wave of electric charge, lighting all his nerves on fire all over again. Pharma was not sure if he screamed in pain or in pleasure, or even what the difference was any more.

Then it was done, and he lay against Tarn’s chest, a quivering ruin. His limbs twitched uselessly; his legs were numb, his arms pathetically weak. His panel slid closed with sluggish reluctance. His fans had run so fast they seared his internal components with their heat. His coolant had boiled dry. Pharma sobbed, half with relief and half with loss.

And Tarn kissed him.

The kiss was impossibly tender, and Pharma realized that though he had no strength to fight it, the DJD commander was not taking the advantage laid out like a sacrifice before him. Tarn’s kindness was, perhaps, the most horrifying thing of all.

If Pharma had ever doubted that the DJD leader was infatuated with him, those doubts had now been conclusively laid to rest.

The notion was terrifying. Pharma had first dared to suspect when the courtship behaviours began: the shared meals, the entertainments, the attempts at conversation. When surgery and humiliation were no longer sufficient for Tarn’s amusement. Pharma had hoped to imagine that the companionship activities were simply a new form of embarrassment, a new venue for the infliction of Tarn’s will, because the idea of Tarn harbouring genuine affection frightened Pharma for three reasons.

The first, and most obvious, was self-control. Had the positions been reversed—had Pharma begun developing feelings for a Decepticon—he knew exactly what he would do. He would kill the object of his affection as quickly as possible before his emotions got out of hand.

Assuming Tarn was already too far gone to make the smart decision, the next problem would be Tarn’s four comrades, who might well take it upon themselves—with or without Tarn’s permission—to eliminate the Autobot who was…vexing…their Commander and causing his strange behaviour.

And both of those options would be preferable to choice number three, which was the possibility that lovestruck Tarn might one day never permit Pharma to fly back to Messatine after one of his appointments. No, Tarn might just decide to _keep_ Pharma. Forever. 

The form that such keeping might take was the stuff of nightmares. Collar and chains, perhaps? Wings torn off, maybe? 

_Or_ , Pharma thought as Tarn’s lips began a slow, languorous trip over his throat, _or it could be that Tarn might get me in such a state that I no longer have the will to leave him_.

A state in which physical restraints would no longer be necessary to keep Pharma on his knees at Tarn’s side.

 _Impossible. Inconceivable_ , Pharma thought as Tarn picked him up and carried him across the room. The tank’s engine purred contentedly.

_…Tank._

Tarn had not transformed. Pharma remembered the early days of Tarn’s visits, when he was left scrubbing tell-tale tank tracks off his floor before anyone else could see them and wonder what had caused them. Strange how Tarn’s T-cogs were as mutilated as ever and yet Pharma could not even remember the last time he’d seen the DJD commander transform…

_Because he’s got another addiction to keep him busy when you’re around._

Oh yes, Pharma was in trouble. Very deep, very bad trouble and _oh, soft…is this my berth?_

Something warm and yielding cradled his back; something plush and luxurious caressed the rear of his wings. Pharma didn’t remember his expensive but purely utilitarian bedcovers feeling as decadent as this. He had to be on his own berth, though; his couch was simply not this wide, nor this soft.

Something heavy and warm settled beside him. Tarn.

Those lips captured his own again, and for the briefest of moments, their tongues touched.

Oh, he had to do something about this, and soon, but what in the Pit was he supposed to do about it now? He couldn’t piss Tarn off when he was blind and helpless. He had to see this through, wait until he had his vision back and then, oh yes, then he had to address this situation he found himself in. Tarn had…Tarn had crossed a line.

The line probably had something to do with the nibbling on his collar assembly and the moist, soothing strokes of the tongue that lapped the places made sensitive by the bites. The line likely had something to do with the hands that traced his transformation seams, tickled his belly, cradled his hips. The line definitely had something to do with the gentle kisses that started by his left knee and made their torturously slow way up his inner thigh until…until…skipping to his right knee. Pharma’s panel popped open again, but there was no relief to be had, not even a chuckle of amusement or a purr of triumph. Nothing but teasing kisses slowly moving up his right thigh…

“Mrgh…Tarn!” The cry of frustration tore from Pharma’s lips unbidden.

The warm, soft mouth hovered on the upper verge of his right thigh.

Pharma froze, suddenly horrified. What was he saying? What was he _craving?_

Tarn, of all mechanisms, would not do _that_. And Pharma, of all mechanisms, would not _want_ him to. 

But Tarn w _as._

And Pharma _did._

Pharma at first did not believe the hot breath on his spike and the softness that enveloped its head. It had been so long since he’d had a nurse kneeling under his desk providing this service that Pharma had almost forgotten how it felt. 

It felt…it felt…

_Decadent._

_Sinful._

_Addictive._

Pharma opened his mouth to tell Tarn to stop and only a low moan came out. He struggled and failed to form even so much as a protest against this new liberty that the DJD commander had seen fit to take. Pharma tried to conceive of a reason why Tarn would lower himself to sucking spike like a buymech and all he could think of was that it was a trap of some sort, some new torment, some clever angle and that it was _working_ , whatever it was. If Tarn….if Tarn stopped now, Pharma knew he would scream in agony.

But Tarn wasn’t stopping.

The tank’s engine thrummed contentedly as he bobbed his head, taking Pharma’s spike a little deeper every time. Pharma writhed, wanting to thrust all the way into that hot, wet mouth and not daring to because this was _Tarn_ , this was something terrible waiting to happen and Pharma was finding it increasingly difficult to care. Where did Tarn of all mechs learn to do _this_?

Oh, Pharma wished he could see the leader of the DJD on his knees, wrapping his lips around Pharma’s spike, servicing him like some new transfer hoping to ingratiate himself with the head doctor. The thought stuck in Pharma’s mind, rendering him unable to pretend this was Ratchet or Ambulon or anyone else. Unable to see, Pharma _felt_ instead, settling his legs over those broad shoulders, in between the treads, almost catching his ankle on one of the thin gun barrels protruding from Tarn’s back. No, there was no imagining that Tarn was tricking him—no question that it was Tarn suckling his spike.

Primus. Where had the commander of the dreaded DJD learned _this?_

Tarn noticed Pharma’s new position and evidently didn’t mind. He slid his hands under Pharma, cupping the jet’s aft, taking some of Pharma’s weight and lifting Pharma’s spike to his lips as though he were sipping from a goblet of fine wine. He hummed with pleasure, evidently savouring the taste of the medic’s spike, and enjoying every moment of it.

Pharma panted, bewildered, dazed by pleasure. Frissons of fear still tickled his spinal strut, but rather than killing the mood they only _enhanced_ it, sending his fuel pumps to hammering wildly and his gauges to redline. Was it possible to die from overloading too hard?

…Did he _care?_

His spike touched the back of Tarn’s throat and he shouted with pleasure, keening shamelessly. The pleasure built relentlessly, mercilessly; there was no question of lasting any longer. Pharma convulsed, and Tarn held him down, sucking firmly, until the pleasure became pain and Pharma squirmed, oversensitized, his breath rasping harshly in his intakes.

Tarn took him deep into his mouth and then, ever so slowly, let Pharma’s spike slide free.

Pharma pulled away and curled up on his side as though hoping to defend himself, knowing already there was no point. Tarn had mastered him utterly. He had no weapons against the DJD commander’s will. He was a slave to his own body’s pleasure and the tank’s whims.

Tarn grasped his hip and rolled Pharma onto his back again, and the jet permitted it without complaint. He was too fatigued to fight, too pleasure-drunk to think clearly, and too thoroughly dominated to utter a word of protest.

Tarn took his aft in his palms again and lifted, and this time the object of his attention was not Pharma’s poor, spent spike. Tarn nudged it aside with his nose and brought his lips to Pharma’s valve, kissing it ever so softly.

Pharma whimpered.

Tarn’s tongue dipped over the lip of the valve, savouring it.

 _Damn you_. Pharma wanted to cry in frustration as he felt his own body betray him. His thighs heated traitorously; he felt a bead of moisture coalesce inside his valve and begin a slow, treacherous slide down its channel to the place where Tarn tasted him with slow, flickering laps of his tongue. 

_It’s not my fault_ , Pharma thought frantically as his fans began their whir and his hips began to pump eagerly, straining towards Tarn, the source of pleasure. _It’s that damned voice of his. I…don’t really want this…it’s all…all his manipulation…all…_

Tarn’s tongue pressed into his valve more insistently, sampling Pharma’s fluids, and the big tank’s engine growled with approval. The sound was as eloquent as words.

But it was not words.

_Not…words._

Pharma’s fuel pumps stopped.

 _Come_. With that quaver in his voice. When he took Pharma in his arms.

That had been the last word that Tarn had spoken.

Which meant that this…the begging and the screaming and the relentless overloads…none of it had been the result of Tarn’s spark manipulation at all, because all this time the DJD commander had not said a single word.

_It’s me._

_I wanted this._

_I liked this._

_All by myself._

Pharma opened his mouth and sobbed into the darkness, realizing he was lost, lost utterly. The blackness before his optics was nothing next to the void that had opened in his spark.

“Doctor?” Tarn paused in his ministrations; his voice was like a lifeline tossed into the abyss.

And Pharma knew that the lifeline was a trick, and a trap, and that to grasp it was certain death; but there was a mercy in the devil one knew, and it would always be infinitely easier to blame Tarn for his predations than to accept that Pharma had come not only to welcome them but to crave them.

“F…frag me,” Pharma whispered.

Tarn’s engines rumbled.

“Frag me,” Pharma said more loudly, “ _please_.”

Tarn’s fans jumped from a roar to a scream; and then the DJD commander was on top of him. Pharma gasped; Tarn’s tongue was gone, and for an instant the jet lay on his berth, his legs spread, his valve wet and shivering from the cool air against it, achingly empty, so neglected it hurt…

Then Tarn was inside him in one powerful thrust, and Pharma wrapped his arms around the DJD commander’s shoulders and his legs around his hips to keep him there. He buried his face in the Decepticon’s neck. “Thank you…thank you….”

“Pharma,” Tarn murmured, his voice taut with tension; a deadly mixture of hunger and approval.

“I wish…” Pharma panted as Tarn’s powerful thrusts moved his whole body, rubbing his back over the soft cover of his berth. “Wish I knew…what name…to scream when I overload…”

“Hm?”

“Tarn…not your real name…” Pharma was almost babbling, and didn’t care.

“Oh my dear Doctor…I would almost think you were fishing for information…mrgh…and at a time like this. _Shameful_.” A sharp edge of dark warning rippled through the Decepticon’s words like a submerged razor, dangerous, ready to cut.

“I’m not the kind of mech to be so wanton,” Pharma panted, “with someone whose name I don’t even know.”

And it was true. He wished it wasn’t. He wished Tarn was right, that his curiosity was a ploy. But if he learned Tarn’s true name, he had nobody to tell—not without implicating himself. Not without admitting to truths that he dared not speak of.

“Who,” Pharma asked, “is _this?”_

He pressed his lips into Tarn’s bare cheek.

The DJD commander inhaled with a hiss, and for a moment, stilled. Pharma moaned in want and writhed, trying to maintain the delicious friction of the tank’s spike in his valve.

“I am Tarn,” Pharma’s lover said, his voice thick and shaky and utterly devoid of its usual fatal rhythm. “I have…sacrificed that mech I used to be.”

And Pharma thought he heard a question in those words: _if you imagined you might have loved the mech behind the mask…can you love me now, if I am nothing but Tarn?_

“Tarn,” Pharma whispered, accepting, and he pressed his mouth to his lover’s.

Tarn hesitated a moment more, and then returned the kiss. Their tongues brushed. Tarn began to move his hips again, and Pharma welcomed him, eagerly.

Pharma gasped for air when their lips parted. “Tarn,” he panted, eagerly, hungrily, as his body thrilled and his lover’s frame thundered against his. “I…yes…I love you…Tarn…”

Tarn surged against him, harder, faster, but Pharma was not frightened any more. He rode the Decepticon’s thundering power, revelling in it, shouting his pleasure, and when his body convulsed he heard the DJD commander gasp and tighten within him. Pharma thought for a moment he glimpsed flickers of the electric lightshow that must be illuminating the room as they joined together at the height of pleasure, magnificent, merciless, a pinnacle achieved only by the very best, united…

And then he fell.

Pharma fell, tumbling from the heavens, as though he were in jet mode and his wings had failed him, as though he had stepped off a cliff into a bottomless chasm. Tarn’s arms tightened around him and yet still he fell; they plummeted together, down and down into the unknowable depths, taunting fate and ruin.

In the darkness, a voice murmured near his audio. “I love you too…my dear Doctor…”

Pharma had a moment—barely an instant—to tighten his arms against his lover and smile his gratitude.

And then, oblivion.


	3. angel of the morning

chapter 3: angel of the morning

Pharma awoke with a start, sitting upright in his berth, his covers falling away from his shoulders and pooling around his waist. His optics activated automatically and he saw…his quarters. Specifically, the cracked paint on the far wall above his personal entertainment centre that he’d been meaning to repaint for some time now. He would get someone to do that today, he decided.

His optics were in perfect working order. He ran his diagnostics programs just to be certain, and they told him what he already knew. No malfunctions. It was as if they’d never been offlined at all.

He shivered, and not just from the loss of his covers and the terminal chill in the air. 

Was it possible the events in his memory were nothing more than a dream? Pharma seized on the notion with a sudden sense of relief. A dream. It _had_ to be. Pharma wasn’t scheduled to fly to the DJD base for another week. Tarn…didn’t often violate Delphi’s security. He _could_ , and he _had_ in the past, but he didn’t do it cavalierly. It was one of those things which, done too often, would clue in Autobot Command that there was something strange happening on Messatine. 

Pharma had just been a bit agitated about his upcoming visit and dredged up that anxiety in the form of the progenitor of all nightmares.

 _Love. Tarn._ The very idea made Pharma feel ill.

Or, Pharma thought ruefully as he noticed a certain aching in his valve, perhaps it was simply that he needed to get laid. Badly. He couldn’t order any of his staff in here for a quick frag, thanks to Tarn’s tyrannical decree, but he was sorely tempted to put Ambulon on a double shift and spend the rest of the day locked in here with the racy vids he’d confiscated from his patients. 

First, though, Pharma just had to make certain that his horrible recollections were nothing more than phantasms. Then he could relax and take what comfort the DJD commander permitted him.

He let his gaze travel around his quarters. There were his table and two chairs, both looking none the worse for wear. Certainly not looking like Tarn had sat in one and made it groan from the weight. There was his music player, keyed up to a song he liked (and knew firsthand that Tarn hated). His shelf was lined with a number of data chips that had been presents from Tarn—there was no getting rid of those—but they looked just the same as they had yesterday. The chip with the Empyrean Suite on it even had dust on the case. It hadn’t been touched in years.

…or it had been touched very, very carefully.

Carefully like the hands on his wings, the tongue on his spike, the lips on his lips…

Pharma shook his head to clear the memory as his fuel tank churned with disgust…and his spike twitched with interest. Ugh, how could this be happening to him? Even if the experience was only a dream, it had infected his mind and tainted his thoughts. How could his own body betray him this way? How could any part of him, ever, _crave_ Tarn’s touch?

_I love you…_

Angrily, Pharma seized his covers, preparing to pull them up over his head. He froze when he felt his fingers sink into thick, plush fibers.

Pharma had a triple-woven, heat-trapping, cold-weather-rated tarp on his berth. Perfectly functional. More expensive and more effective than anything his staff or patients had. Coloured a nice navy blue colour to match his own trim.

The covering he was touching now was extravagantly soft, covered with long, fuzzy threads that swept over his frame like a thousand caresses, stroking and soothing, wrapping around him like a lover’s arms and surrounding him with decadent warmth. Mechanisms on Delphi would be sorely tempted by a luxury like this; Pharma himself would be delighted, save for two concerns.

Autobot interior designers had long ago given up on using a certain shade of purple in their décor.

And Pharma had not owned this cover yesterday morning.

He threw the blanket away from him as though it were contaminated; as though every second it spent in contact with him increased his risk of contracting a deadly and repulsive disease. The cold hit him like a thousand little needles stabbing into his joints. He wrapped his hand over his mouth, feeling waves of nausea surging through him as the memories stabbed their way into his mind, somehow all the more vivid for the lack of visuals.

His tongue straying into Tarn’s mouth, hungry for a deeper kiss.

_I love you…Tarn…_

Tarn’s answering chuckle. _I love you too, my dear Doctor._

Pharma didn’t know how long he sat there, struggling, trembling with exertion. His optics streamed with light; his fuel tanks threatened to purge. He shuddered with disgust and unwanted desire; somehow, even the thought of Tarn had his valve pulsing with longing. How was he ever going to make it through his appointment at DJD headquarters next week? How was he ever going to make it through today?

Without his optics, he’d seen the point of no return fast approaching: the time when he would either make the choice to act, or lose his will to Tarn forever. 

…This situation was untenable. It had to end.

Pharma got up and paced the room, his mind churning into overdrive. There had to be some way that would make Autobot High Command close down Delphi in a way that wouldn’t implicate him. They’d move him then, far away from Tarn’s grasp. He didn’t care any more if he was faulted for failing to save Delphi. He didn’t care any more if he didn’t go back to Cybertron to claim the post of Chief Medical Officer for himself. He had to get off Messatine— _now—_ while his soul was still his own.

Even now he found himself longing for Tarn’s presence, craving Tarn’s touch, hungering for the fatal sound of Tarn’s voice, murmuring in his…

_Fatal sound._

His optics fell on the music player again, and his lips curved into a cruel smile.

_Fatal sound._

Now _there_ was an idea.

~fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Dratchet.
> 
> ....though I'd love to do something from Tarn's point of view at some point in the future.


End file.
